However, critics ridiculed both the idea and the UN itself, noting, among other facts, that the attack occurred in a “gun-free zone.” In light of the controversial remarks, gun-rights leaders also reiterated calls for the United States to withdraw from the UN and stop funding it with American taxpayer dollars.

Echoing a common logical fallacy among anti-gun rights extremists, the UN's Hussein, a prince of the Islamic Hashemite dynasty that rules Jordan, also blamed guns for violence. For instance, he argued that the “commonplace but preventable violent attacks” are “the direct result of insufficient gun control.” How such violent attacks occur in countries with draconian gun control, such as France, was not made clear. However, estimates suggest there are already as many as 20,000 gun laws and regulations on the books in the United States. Along with murder and terrorism laws, many of those gun regulations were violated in the deadly attack on the homosexual nightclub Pulse in Orlando, Florida, over the weekend. In fact, state law actually mandated that all club goers be disarmed, something that has held true in virtually every mass shooting in U.S. history.

Critics were outraged by the UN. Gun Owners of America's executive director emeritus Larry Pratt, previous head of the nation's fiercest defender of gun rights, blasted the global outfit and its human-rights chief over the remarks. Pratt suggested, sarcastically, that perhaps the surviving Tutsi of Rwanda, who depended on UN protection and were disarmed prior to being slaughtered by the hundreds of thousands, might have some comments on the issue. “The UN has also been complicit in some of these mass murders,” he added. “These folks have blood-soaked hands, and they presume to lecture us in America for exercising our constitutionally protected rights? The hypocrisy is more than I can even utter. They deserve nothing but contempt.”

In a phone interview with The New American, Pratt also argued that real human rights and gun rights are co-existent and inseparable. “When gun rights are violated, that's when the slaughter begins,” he explained, citing numerous examples including National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, the Soviet Union, the Castro regime in Cuba, and other regimes that butchered and murdered millions of innocent victims after leaving them defenseless with gun control. “Dictators know, gun control is cool. But the rest of us should have figured it out already — gun control is deadly.”

It is time for Americans to stop funding the UN and its attacks on individual rights, Pratt added. “The UN high commissioner [for human rights] just gave us one more example of why we shouldn't be in the United Nations at all,” he said. “This is an organization that has been involved in so many millions losing their lives. The hypocrisy of that, to sit in judgment of the United States, this guy deserves no respect whatsoever. The UN building should be sold to an American resort company or something so it can be put to productive use.”

In the official press release posted on the UN website, the senior UN official made his case using deeply misleading comments and outright falsehoods on gun laws in the United States. “It is hard to find a rational justification that explains the ease with which people can buy firearms, including assault rifles, in spite of prior criminal backgrounds, drug use, histories of domestic violence and mental illness, or direct contact with extremists — both domestic and foreign,” argued the UN “High Commissioner for Human Rights.” Those claims are, of course, simply false.

In the real world, automatic assault rifles are basically banned in the United States without a special license from the ATF. Only semi-automatic rifles that sometimes look similar to military assault rifles are legal, and even those are banned in many states. Separately, gun ownership is already prohibited for those with criminal backgrounds involving felonies or domestic violence, drug use, and adjudication of mental illness. It was not immediately clear whether the UN's Hussein was deliberately lying or was simply misinformed on the nature of existing U.S. and state gun laws. The reference to "contact with extremists" appears to be a call to violate other constitutionally protected rights, including due process of law, enshrined in the Constitution.

The UN official continued with more falsehoods and anti-gun propaganda to demonize gun rights and Americans who support them. “Irresponsible pro-gun propaganda suggests that firearms make society safer, when all evidence points to the contrary,” Zeid was quoted as saying in the official press release. In reality, of course, mountains of evidence suggest that more firearms in civilian hands reduces violent crime and makes society safer — not just from petty criminals, but from tyrants and mass-murdering regimes like many of the UN's “member states” that restrict the gun rights of their victims.

In the United States, more guns have also been shown to be a positive force. Last year, for example, the most recent data showed that as gun ownership across the United States was soaring, violent crime and murder rates were plunging. The states that benefited most were those with the most guns, according to a report by the Crime Prevention Research Center on the issue. Scholar John Lott, who runs the center and authored the book More Guns, Less Crime, has compiled massive amounts of evidence highlighting the correlation. A study in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy also found that more guns in private hands reduces crime. The reason is obvious: Criminals already ignore the law, but when their victims may be legally armed, criminals are less likely to strike.

Anecdotal evidence also supports the premise. Gun-friendly Switzerland and the United States, for example, have rates of murder and violence that pale in comparison to gun-control utopias. Consider Venezuela, where civilians were disarmed by the socialist regime with help from the UN, which now has almost 20 times as many murders per capita as the United States. Mexico also has some of the strictest gun bans in the world, as well as one of the highest murder rates in the world, many times higher than the United States. In a glaring example of hypocrisy, there was no similar UN screed in favor of gun control after the recent mass-shooting terror attacks in France or Norway, which already have some of the most draconian gun-control laws in the world.

The UN pointed to a new report by its human rights bureaucracy advocating civilian disarmament. According to the global outfit's press release, the document supposedly highlights how gun rights allegedly lead to gun violence and are “devastating” to what the UN defines as “human rights,” including the “rights” to “education, health, an adequate standard of living and participation in cultural life.” The UN and most of its member regimes, which have killed tens of millions of innocent, disarmed people since the UN was established, do not respect the God-given right to keep and bear arms.

The UN human rights bureaucrat also appealed to emotion, wondering how many more killings it would take “before the United States adopts robust gun regulation,” as if gun control would prevent mass killings. He also complained that there are “hundreds of millions of guns in circulation,” saying there should be a “legal framework to control the acquisition and use of firearms.” Indeed, while not mentioned specifically by Hussein, the UN and Obama are already working on precisely such a framework. Known as the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), the unconstitutional scheme is aimed at eventually ensuring a monopoly on weapons in the hands of the UN and its largely autocratic member states, which have murdered unfathomably more people than all the serial killers and terrorists in world history combined.

Of course, as the recent terror attacks in Paris with illegal AK-47s showed clearly, gun control will not stop terrorism or gun violence. Instead, it will ensure that law-abiding victims and potential victims of terrorism and mass-murder remain defenseless to cower before their killers. As Venezuela, Mexico, and other nations show clearly, UN-supported civilian disarmament schemes will only facilitate more violence, crime, oppression, and murder. Gun rights are real human rights. And they are conducive to safety, order, and liberty.

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

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